Impact

In monitoring progress in the delivery of SVC recommendations to the Scottish Government it is important to consider the impact on those I aim to support, namely veterans and their families. Their lives should benefit from the changing policy and practices that result from these recommendations.

The action necessary to make things better can be complex, often calling for joined-up thinking and collaboration across different agencies and change doesn’t happen overnight but we are starting to see real improvement. That is down to the effort of many individuals and organisations who have got behind the recommendations and worked together to influence and deliver change. That should be acknowledged and celebrated.

We do not yet have good enough Scotland level data to be able to measure and report progress in a quantitative way, with numbers. That is my hope for the future, once we have data from the 2022 Census and the annual Scottish Household Surveys. What we can do for now is report qualitative progress, on the basis of the evidence and observations which were used to assess progress on SVC recommendations.

This separate report on impact sets out all SVC recommendations fully achieved as at September 2023. Many more have progressed and are showing as partially implemented or implemented but work should continue to embed in my main progress report.

You can view all SVC recommendations fully achieved below.

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